The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for transferring messages between two remote parties. In particular, it relates to voice mail systems and in a preferred form, to a method of, in the event of a busy or no-answer condition, playing a greeting and recording a message locally then forwarding that message to the remote voice mail system of the called party via a data network.
Many telephone calls today do not achieve their intended objective of putting two parties into direct voice communication with each other. Usually, the calling party ends up leaving a voice message which is subsequently listened to by the called party. Voice mail systems serve the primary function of recording a message when the party for whom a call is intended does not answer the call in person.
In the event of an incoming call at a telephone switch of a system equipped with a voice mail system, the voice mail system may monitor the progress of the call. If the intended telephone is busy, or if the intended telephone is not answered after a predetermined number of rings, the voice mail system might answer the call and play a greeting. If the telephone is answered the voice mail system stops monitoring the call.
Each user of a voice mail system has an associated voice mailbox. The voice mailbox is used to store messages recorded as a result of the voice mail system answering incoming calls so that the user may review the messages at a later time. This mailbox may also store a greeting that is played when the voice mail system answers the call, or two greetings, one which is played in a busy situation and another which is played otherwise. In general, greetings may be recorded by the user and played in any arbitrary situation that is detectable by the voice mail system; another example is a specific greeting for a particular calling line ID. The greetings are usually recorded by the user, typically give possible reasons for not answering the call and often prompt the caller to leave a message. Reasons for not answering the call may include the line being busy with another call, or being unable to answer due to a brief or prolonged absence. The greeting may also give instructions for urgent matters.
In present day voice mail systems, the recording of both the outgoing greeting and incoming messages is accomplished digitally. A digitally recorded message may be stored, then addressed and sent to the voice mailbox of another user of the same voice mail system. This approach is referred to as xe2x80x9cstore and forwardxe2x80x9d messaging.
In some cases, voice mail systems in locations remote from each other are connected in a xe2x80x9cstore and forwardxe2x80x9d messaging digital network of voice mail systems. More particularly, a local user may record a message for a remote user and when the recording is complete, the local voice mail system can then communicate with the voice mail system on which the voice mailbox of the remote user resides in order to forward the message. This has the result of leaving a message in a remote user""s voice mailbox just as a call answered by the remote voice mail system would have.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,578 issued Nov. 5, 1996 to Lin describes networked voice mail systems in which each voice. mail system (the xe2x80x9clocalxe2x80x9d system) maintains a directory of information about the users of the other voice mail systems in the network (the xe2x80x9cremotexe2x80x9d systems). Such information is used for xe2x80x9cstore and forwardxe2x80x9d messaging and, for a given remote user, might include the remote user""s spoken name, which allows for a spoken confirmation of the name of the voice mail recipient, and the remote user""s ASCII name which can be used in xe2x80x9cdial-by-namexe2x80x9d addressing of the voice mail. The information is updated when a message is forwarded to a remote user and the remote system returns a message acknowledging receipt of the voice mail message.
In the case of a call to a remote location, long distance toll charges may apply related to the duration of the call. Such charges may be acceptable if the remote user answers the call personally but may be seen as expensive if it is only possible to leave a voice mail message. Had the calling party known that the called party was not going to be available, rather than using a normal voice telephone line the message could have been sent as a data transmission via e-mail or some other system and this would have had two benefits. The first benefit is that the communication would have been less expensive in view of the fact that the same amount of data could be transferred over a data communication path in less time than the voice message and secondly that the voice telephone line would be available for other communications.
The present provides a method and apparatus whereby the fact that the called party is only available to receive a message is recognised and the communication path between the called and the calling party altered from a voice channel to a data channel. This is achieved by recording the message locally to the calling party, processing the message as a data message and sending it via the data channel to the called party where the message is reconstructed and awaits accessing by the called party.
In accordance with an aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for determining whether a remote voice mail system, is digitally networked to a local voice mail system. An unsuccessful attempt to reach to the remote party in person results in the local voice mail system performing voice mail tasks locally rather than at the remote voice mail system. In one embodiment, after a busy or no answer condition, the connection between the local and remote switches is dropped and the local user may be presented with the greeting of the remote user by the local voice mail system. In another embodiment, this greeting is played by the remote voice mail system before the connection between the local and remote telephone switches is dropped. In response to the greeting a message is recorded locally and forwarded to the voice mailbox of the remote user through the digital network.
A first aspect of the invention provides a method of transferring a message from a calling party at a calling entity to a called entity comprising the steps of:
initiating a call to a called party at the called entity over a communications channel;
identifying that the called party is not available; and
recording the message at the calling entity and after recording transmitting the message as a data message via a data channel for reception by the called entity.
Preferably greetings associated with the called parties of the remote messaging system are stored by the local messaging system, and the method includes the step of, responsive to the instructing step, playing a greeting to at the local messaging system. This has an advantage of minimising the time that the call across the network needs to be held.
Another aspect of the present invention provides a messaging system for transferring a message from a calling party at a calling entity to a called party at a called entity comprising:
means for initiating a call to the called party at the called entity over a communications channel;
means for identifying that the called party is not available; and
means for recording the message at the calling entity and after recording for transmitting the recorded message as a data message via a data channel for reception by the called entity.
A further aspect of the present invention provides a method for handling an incoming call at a called entity, the call being from a calling party at a calling entity, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving the incoming call at the called entity;
identifying that the called party is not available;
determining whether a local messaging system associated with the calling entity is capable of local recording and transmission of messages to a remote messaging system at the called entity;
if the determining step determines that the local messaging system is capable of local recording and transmission, instructing the local messaging system to record a message and after recording to transmit the message as a data message via a data channel for reception by the called entity.
A further aspect of the present invention provides apparatus for handling an incoming call at a called entity, the call being from a calling party at a calling entity, the apparatus comprising:
means for receiving the incoming call at the called entity;
means for identifying that the called party is not available;
means for determining whether a local messaging system associated with the calling entity is capable of local recording and transmission of messages to a remote messaging system at the called entity;
means instructing, if the determining step determines that the local messaging system is capable of local recording and transmission, the local messaging system to record a message and after recording to transmit the message as a data message via a data channel for reception by the called entity.
A further aspect of the present invention provides a method for handling an outgoing call from a calling party at a calling entity, the call being intended for a called party at a called entity, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving an instruction from the called entity for a local messaging system associated with the calling entity to record a message;
dropping the call with the called entity; and
recording the message at the calling entity and after recording transmitting the message as a data message via a data channel for reception by the called entity.
A further aspect of the present invention provides an apparatus for handling an outgoing call from a calling party at a calling entity, the call being intended for a called party at a called entity, the apparatus comprising:
means for receiving an instruction from the called entity for a local messaging system associated with the calling entity to record a message;
means for dropping the call with the called entity; and
means for recording the message at the calling entity and after recording transmitting the message as a data message via a data channel for reception by the called entity.
A still further aspect of the present invention provides a method of transferring a message from a calling party to a calling entity to a called entity comprising the steps of:
initiating a potential voice call to a called party at the called entity over a voice channel;
identifying that the called party is not available to speak and generating a signal indicative thereof,
sending the signal to the calling entity as a result of said identification;
requesting the calling party to leave a voice message; and
storing said voice message
characterised in that the voice message is stored at the calling entity and after storage is forwarded to the called entity via a data channel for reception by the called party.
The call between the calling entity and the called entity can be initiated via the public switched telephone network. The advantage of using these methods and apparatus with such a call is that the time occupied by the calling party on an expensive voice telephone line is reduced to a minimum and in some cases there can be no charge for the voice part of the message transfer. Rather than using the expensive resources of the switched network, a data network is used instead. Further, by using a data path for processing a voice mail message, data compression can be used so that the message can be passed over the data path using a minimum time and consequently reducing the cost to a minimum.
The methods and apparatus according to the invention also have advantages where the call between the calling entity and called entity is via a data network, such as the internet, as would be the case where the calling entity and called entity are communicating using voice over internet techniques. By recording a message at a messaging system local to the calling entity, digital signal processing (DSP) resources of the gateways are freed for use with real-time calls. There is a further advantage that the quality of the recorded message and of voice prompts and greetings during the voice messaging session are improved because the session takes place local to the calling party.
The data message can be sent to the called entity, such as the voice mail system of the called party, or it can be sent to any other data reception device of the called party, e.g. an email address of the called party.
The proposed system can be fully automatic, simply requiring the passage of appropriate messages between the calling switching station and the called switching station so that the overall process is transparent to the users.